Deeplinks Blog posts about Transparency

EFF has called on companies to stand with their users when the government comes looking for data. (If you haven’t done so, sign the petition urging companies to provide better transparency and privacy.) This article will provide a more detailed look at the last of the four elements required for a company to earn a gold star in our campaign: Fight for user privacy in Congress.

In prior blog posts about the "Who Has Your Back?" campaign, we've explained that companies largely rely on internal policies when the government comes seeking data about users. If those policies are weak, murky, or left unshared, we as users are prevented from making informed decisions about the privacy risks we face.

This month, the New York Timesreported that the FBI has updated its internal domestic investigations guidelines to provide its agents with “significant new powers.” According to the Times, this update will provide agents with “more leeway to search databases, go through household trash or use surveillance teams to scrutinize the lives of people who have attracted their attention.” These changes are especially troubling as they come on the heels of the Obama Administration’s efforts to extend FBI Director Robert Mueller’s term and on recent reports that the Bureau has once again engaged in controversial surveillance activities directed at “prominent peace activists and politically-active labor organizers.”

The success of Wikileaks in obtaining and releasing information has inspired mainstream media outlets to develop proprietary copycat sites. Al-Jazeera got into the act first, launching the Al-Jazeera Transparency Unit (AJTU), an initiative meant to "allow Al-Jazeera's supporters to shine light on notable and noteworthy government and corporate activities which might otherwise go unreported." AJTU assures users that "files will be uploaded and stored on our secure servers" and that materials "are encrypted while they are transmitted to us, and they remain encrypted on our servers."

In an ongoing battle in the Southern District of New York about whether the government must disclose metadata when it releases documents under the Freedom of Information Act, it now appears Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) may have lied in a declaration it filed with the court. This comes on the heels of our earlier report about the FBI lying in a FOIA case in California and does not instill confidence that the government is acting honestly or ethically in FOIA litigation.

Earlier this month the FBI, DEA and the Department of Justice Criminal Division responded to our FOIA litigation for records related to the Department of Justice’s controversialefforts to push Congress to expand the Communications Assistance to Law Enforcement Act (CALEA).